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ABSTRACT
Along with the development of the use of various types of compounds, one compound that
continues to attract the attention of many scientists is hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). H2O2 is a
peroxide compound, which is a compound that has a single bond between oxygen. This
compound can naturally originate from the chemical processes of the human body for the
purposes of detoxification in body organs and in rain and snow, where the result of the
reaction of water with ozone causes ozone to lose one of its oxygen to form H2O2.
H2O2 has the property to decompose easily when exposed to light along with the development
of the use of various types of compounds, one compound that continues to attract the
attention of many scientists is hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). H2O2 is a peroxide compound,
which is a compound that has a single bond between oxygen. This compound can naturally
originate from the chemical processes of the human body for the purposes of detoxification in
body organs and in rain and snow, where the result of the reaction of water with ozone causes
ozone to lose one of its oxygen to form H2O2.
1. Introduction
Another method of distillation is the flash vaporization distillation method. This
method increases production rates, but decreases the products purity as it runs continuously.
Flash vaporization is the one of the few methods that enables mass production with lower
concentration, unlike differential distillation which produces high concentrated products but
with limited production rates. In this paper, we would like to utilize this method to distillate a
dilute H2O2 solution into lab-grade solution, and see whether if it yields economical results.
II. Flash vaporization of binary mixture
Flash vaporization consists of three main principles. The first one is the partial
vaporization of the liquid mixture. This is done in several ways, most notably by first heating
the liquid feed to a certain temperature and then “flashing” it by flowing it through an orifice,
causing enough pressure drop that would cause some amount of the mixture to evaporate
(with the most volatile substance evaporating the most). The second one is allowing the
system to reach equilibrium inside the separator unit. Lastly is the separation between both
the liquid & gas phase, with the liquid phase flowing downwards in the separator unit and the
gas flowing upwards.
The composition of mixture that is used in this study case is written in Table 1.
Binary Multicomponent
Compound Mole fraction Compound Mole fraction
H2O 0.97 H2O 0.8
H2O2 0.03 H2O2 0.03
Ethanol 0.17
Table1. Mixture composition
In order to calculate the mixture composition in the product side, we have to derive
an equation that would ease further calculations / iterations if we have already established the
mixture that is used. To do so is to utilize the material balance that happen within the
separator unit system.
Figure1. A flash distillation unit comprised of a heat exchanger, expansion valve, and separator.
Source: www.sciencedirect.com
The material balance of the system is written as so:
𝐹 =𝑊+𝐷
𝐹 ∗ 𝑧𝐹 = 𝐷 ∗ 𝑦𝐷 + 𝑊 ∗ 𝑧𝑊
𝐻𝐹 + 𝑄 = 𝐻𝐷 + 𝐻𝑊
By simultaneously finishing each equation, a new and simpler equation is formed:
−𝑊 𝑦𝐷 − z𝐹 𝐻𝐷 − (𝐻𝐹 + Q/F)
= =
𝐷 𝑥𝑊 − z𝐹 𝐻𝑊 − (𝐻𝐹 + Q/F)
This equation is known as the operating line slope, and it allows distillation
calculations to be done through the x-y graph by plotting the line within the operating line so
that it reaches a new point in the x-y curve. This new point is the distillation composition of
the solution. Further iteration of the liquid temperature of the mixture also allows the
calculation of the separator’s temperature in its equilibrium stage.
A B C T min T max BP
H2O 7.96681 1668.21 228 60 150 100.0006
H2O2 7.96917 1886.76 220.6 - - 150.1995
Etanol 7.68117 1332.04 199.2 77 243 78.28773
First of all, we should look at the table above to understand the data that is crucial to the plot
process of x-y graph of this binary mixture. The data above is obtained by using Antoine’s
equation and modified equation that is discussed at previous section.
Now, we are able to visualize into the x-y graph below:
Temperature, °C
0.6 120
0.5 110
0.4 100
0.3
90
0.2
0.1 80
0 70
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
x = mole fraction of water in liquid
Figure2. H2O- H2O2 x-y graph. The orange line indicates the liquid temperature of the mixture.
With these ideas in mind, we would like to distillate an H2O2 solution from 3% in
mole fraction into 35% and calculate its economic feasibility. We begin by using Raoult’s
law and the distribution coefficient (m) to calculate the product flow rate. This is done by the
following equations:
𝑅𝑎𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑡 ′ 𝑠 𝑙𝑎𝑤: 𝑦𝐷 = 𝑚 ∗ 𝑥𝑊
𝑊 𝑦𝐷 − 𝑧𝐹 𝑦𝐷 𝑊 𝑊
− =𝑦 → 𝑦𝐷 − 𝑧𝐹 = − ∗ + 𝑧𝐹 ∗
𝐷 𝐷 𝑚 𝐷 𝐷
𝑚 − 𝑧𝐹
𝑊
𝑧𝐹 (1 + 𝐷 )
𝑦𝐷 =
𝑊
1 + (𝑚 ∗ 𝐷 )
With the help of goal seek, we can easily calculate the operating line’s slope by
searching for its value that would result in the sum of all the vapor mole fraction being 1
(∑ 𝑦𝐷∗ = 1). The conditions of the flash distillation for the binary composition given in Table
1 is written below (Table 3). The results conclude that the initial flash distillation at this
condition has an operating line slope of -W/D = -0.218585. This would allow us to calculate
the composition of the distillate.
Compound Pvap m zF yD xW
H2O 823.1045 1.083032 0.97 0.983526 0.908122
H2O2 133.3809 0.175501 0.03 0.01628 0.092765
SUM 0.999806 1.000888
By repeating the process, we can eventually achieve the stage in which the distillate
composition reaches the intended concentration. To ease the interpretation of the data, the x-y
curve above is plotted with the points of the composition and the distillation results below:
Judging by the curve, the solution will finally reach a concentration of around 35%
after distillation has been done three times in subsequent flash vaporization units via manual
calculation.
This result was strongly supported by use of a Unisim Software to calculate the distillation
process. And it checks out, exactly like the manual result with slight improvement over a
numerical error.
Figure4. Distillation process of binary mixtures by Unisim software (H2O-H2O2).